One Year Anniversary

Today was the anniversary of our arrival in Sweden.  It has been an exciting and fun year. We have enjoyed exploring our new city, visited 6 countries, welcomed Kerstin, had some wonderful visitors and David graduated! They time has truly flown by.  It is hard to pick out my favorite trip of the year.  It is either Prague or Venice.  David’s favorite comes down to Venice or Tallinn.  Ellie’s favorite is whatever trip we are heading to next. 

Rice Cereal

September 27

Saturday the 24 was Kerstin’s first taste of real food.  We started her with rice cereal.  Ellie was super excited for her to start eating and was looking forward to getting to feed her.  Kerstin was excited at the beginning and would move the cereal around in her mouth but would then push it out.  More came out of the baby than stayed inside.   Ellie was confused about why Kerstin didn’t eat “right”.  After explaining that it was a new taste and eating is a skill babies have to practice (like bike riding), Ellie decided she wanted to taste rice cereal since she didn’t remember it.  She also spit it right back out saying it tasted bad.

 On day two of the great cereal experiment, every spoonful that went in came right back out.  By day three and four Kerstin clamped her lips shut and turned away from the spoon.  She is officially not a fan of rice cereal. 

Tallin Day 3

We had nothing big planned for this day because we had a fairly early afternoon flight.  We wandered up through the Toompea area.  There was a beautiful Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin that is the main Lutheran Church in Estonia. We saw the Toompea Castle and found a great overlook to the city.  David made an old Estonian coin.  After a final trip to the park and a quick lunch we headed back to the airport. 

More stairs - climbing up to Toompea

Town wall

Lookout from Toompea

David making a coin

We had nothing big planned for this day because we had a fairly early afternoon flight.  We wandered up through the Toompea area.  There was a beautiful Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin that is the main Lutheran Church in Estonia. We saw the Toompea Castle and found a great overlook to the city.  David made an old Estonian coin.  After a final trip to the park and a quick lunch we headed back to the airport. 

Tallinn Day 2

On day two, Ellie woke up feeling like a hund (dog).  She spent alot of the day on leash (aka ring sling) and barking.  She also wanted to make sure all locations were hund friendly.  After starting off the day with a little shopping, our first stop was Oleviste Church Tower.  At one time it had the tallest church spire in the whole world at 159m but after three fires it is now only 124 meters high.  The climb up the tower was quite challenging.  The stairway was narrow and circular and the steps where higher than normal.  For Ellie the steps were knee high.  Ellie did a wonderful job of climbing to the top.  As challenging as the climb was the view at the top was worth it.  You could get a great sense of where old town had been with many of the towers and 2km of the wall still standing. 

After a quick stop at the park for Ellie to burn off some energy we stopped at Epping Tower which is a renovated tower in the medieval wall.  It focused on the fortifications, arms and armor.  In addition to displays, they also had weapons and armor that you could try on.  We then took a walk on the town wall and passed through 3 towers.  Ellie enjoyed pretending to be a guard and looking out the windows for the enemy. 

After a quick lunch break, we took a ride on Toomas the train.  It was a 20 minute ride around Old town.  Both of the girls really enjoyed the ride.  Next was a climb into yet another tower of the town wall.  This one housed a photography exhibit and gave us another chance to walk on the town wall.  Across for the tower was St Catherine’s passage which is well known for its artisans.  Ellie’s favorite artisan was the leather worker.  We ended the day with a trip to McDonald’s and the park for Ellie. 

Ellie the hund in the town square

Oleviste Church Tower

Climbing the tower

View from the top

Town Wall

Kerstin does not want to defend the town



Having fun with weapons



Walking the town wall



Toomas the Train



Tallinn Day 1

Our September adventure took us to Tallinn, Estonia.  It is the capital of Estonia and has one of the best preserved medieval town walls.  We flew out of Skavsta Airport which is about 1 ½ hours outside of Stockholm.  It is a bit of a travel but Ryan Air has some wonderful deals on airline tickets.  Once we landed in Tallinn we were able to use the bus system to get close to our hotel (Olevi Residence) which dates back to the 14^th century and was located in the heart of Old Town.  The hotel was wonderful but sadly had no lift. This was the beginning of many stairs that we would climb all over town.  After dropping our luggage we set off to explore.

Our first stop was the Church of the Holy Ghost.  It was filled with many beautiful paintings.  Next we wandered through Old Town Square and walked around the outside of town hall.  Our final stop of the day was the Raeapteek – the oldest continually operating pharmacy in Europe.  It has been in continuous operation in the same building since at least 1422.  In addition to being a pharmacy, there is a small museum of medicinal items in the building.  Their products are still displayed in old-fashioned cases. 

Ellie was requested pizza for dinner and we were able to find an Italian restaurant on the square.  After a delicious meal we wandered through some of the streets off the square before returning to the hotel for the evening.

Church of the Holy Ghost

Town Hall

Pharmacy

Medicinal Drug Display